What is Hannah Montana The Movie about? Miley Cyrus Interview

Question: What is “Hannah Montana: The Movie” about?

“Hannah Montana: the Movie” is basically about Miley Stewart going back to Tennessee to her roots and to become the normal girl she was. Not necessarily give up Hannah Montana, but give up just a little bit more of the rock star life and become a normal girl again.

Question: How does the soundtrack tell the story of Hannah Montana?

The soundtrack is all about getting back to your roots. We have songs like “Back To Tennessee” by my dad (Billy Ray Cyrus) and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home,” which is a new Hannah Montana song. There are songs that really bring it back to Nashville and especially “Butterfly Fly Away.” It’s a country song. Even “The Climb” is more country.

Question: What was it like for you to record the soundtrack for Hannah Montana?

Recording the soundtrack was fun because you go a little out of order. I started recording even before we went into production for the movie and then finished recording after acting in the movie. It’s easier recording once you’ve seen the movie. But I liked kind of getting a feel for the movie before I went into production. So that was cool, being able to hear the music to get a gist of what the film was going to be like before we even got started.

Question: How was recording a soundtrack different?

Being in the studio for a movie is a little different, because the songs are definitely a little more animated because they’re trying to tell a story along with the script. They have to compliment each other. It made it fun and also a little more of a challenge.

Question: What does the music mean to you?

The music means a lot to me because “The Climb” is something that is so inspirational. I think that’s really cool. I think it really describes the movie. “Butterfly Fly Away” is probably my favorite song on the album because it’s me and my dad once again. I think that’s really cool to put that on the big screen.

Question: Talk about “The Climb”

“The Climb” is really cool because I think it isn’t only for fans that are necessarily fans of the movie or fans of the show. But it is for anyone around the world at any age. They can all relate to this song because it really is true. It’s not just about the destination. It’s about the journey. It’s about the getting there. It’s about the work you put into what you love.

Question: What’s the emotion in the song “The Climb”?

The emotion of “The Climb” definitely shows a lot of inspiration, courage and strength. I think that’s really cool. Definitely it shows more of the inner strength and how you have to push yourself. Because there’s always going to be challenges, but it’s all up to you to make it happen.

Question: How does the song relate to you?

“The Climb” relates to my real life because I still have more to work up to. I definitely want to keep going and doing more things. It really just shows that you’re never at the top. You’ve always got more places to go.

Question: What do you want people to get from the soundtrack?

With the soundtrack, I want people that haven’t seen the movie to listen to the soundtrack and go - Oh my gosh! I really want to see the movie now because the soundtrack tells the story a little bit. People that are fans of the music get just a little bit of the story but they’ll want to keep getting more and more. They want to see more. They want to see what happens.

Question: What about the people who’ve seen the movie, then listen to the soundtrack?

I think it’ll be cool because you’ll see the movie and you’ll have more of the visual picture when you’re listening to the song. I think that’ll be fun. When you turn the music on, you don’t only see how it inspires you or how you like a song but you get to see different scenes. You get to hear them throughout the movie and get introduced to the songs.

Question: How’d you come up with all the songs on the CD?

I wrote one song on the soundtrack. I wasn’t a huge part of the writing because I was filming and I was just so busy. But we did get a really good collection of songs together. I’m really proud of it and it is definitely fun to listen to. They all reminded me so much of the movie and were very inspiring to me and made me want to work harder for the movie. So that’s why we picked the ones we did.

Question: Talk about the song “Let’s Get Crazy”

“Let’s get Crazy” is basically just about wanting to have a good time and being able to dance with your friends and have fun. I think it’s more of a party song than anything else.

Question: What do the lyrics of the song mean?

“Let’s Get Crazy” is a song that is in the scene where Lilly’s having her Sweet 16 party. It’s mostly just about having a good time with your friends. At one part its like get up and dance! It’s dance and sing and do whatever makes you have a good time so I think that’s cool.

Question: So how does the boardwalk scene go?

The boardwalk scene is Lilly’s Sweet 16 party so it fits in well because everyone is dancing. There’s also a lot of chaos going on because Hannah Montana shows up to Lilly’s Sweet 16 Party. So I think that’s perfect because everyone is going crazy seeing this pop star at just their normal friend’s party. She wants people to have fun at her party but it wasn’t supposed to be about Hannah Montana. It’s supposed to be about Lilly Trescott.

Question: Talk about the “Hoedown Throwdown”

“The Hoedown Throwdown” is cool because there’s definitely a lot of dancing songs in this movie but it’s still not a musical. We’re not always dancing and singing at the same time. This scene is the one time we actually get to do a little of a musical. We don’t necessarily have everyone dancing all of the time. So this is where you get to see the entire cast and even some of the crew dance. We finally get to have a part that shows all of us really come together through a song. It makes the town and Miley a little closer. She starts to feel more at home. I think that’s really cool the way it bonds the community.

Question: Did you help come up with the dance moves?

Jamal Simms is my choreographer.. We know each other pretty well. There were parts we thought we could make it funkier and more of a hip-hop vibe and still catch a country base. We had fun creating the dances but he’s still the master. He’s the mastermind behind it all.

Question: What is it like getting to see other people doing the dance?

It is cool because I have all these kids at different events say I know the “Hoedown Throwdown” now! That’s really cool that they can get to dance to it and then in the theaters, hopefully they’ll get to dance to it too!

Question: What’s the remix of “Best of Both Worlds?”

The remix of “Best of Both Worlds” has different drums and different guitars. It’s pretty much the same song. It’s just more of a fun poppier version. I’ve been singing that song for 3 years now so I think it was time we updated it and made it more fun and crazier. It’s a little dancier too.

Question: Where does this song go in the movie?

The “Best of Both Worlds” is in the beginning of the film. It’s where you get to see where the Hannah glamour all starts out. Dancing to “Best of Both Worlds” then it turns into a music video.

Question: Where does “The Climb” fall into the film?

“The Climb” is mentioned in the film a couple times. It originally starts with Lucas Till who plays Travis. I ask if all he wants to do is work on a farm. He’s says it’s about where I am right now, it’s about the climb, it’s about getting to the top. I’ll be there someday. Another time, Emily asks me if I’m ready to go and she’s asking was this hard work, what you did? Because I put together a chicken coop! I’m like it’s just about the climb.

Question: What was it like to make the music video?

The music video was really cool. It wasn’t like any music video I’ve ever done before, because I was on the green screen. Its nuts to be able to work like that. Then see the end you’re like oh my gosh I was just on a green screen and look how beautiful it turned out! I was in the middle of the Grand Canyon .

Question: What’s so special about the Hannah Montana the Movie soundtrack?

The Hannah Montana the Movie soundtrack is cool because it really does tell the story of the movie. I think that’s fun to really understand where all the inspiration for the movie came from. “The Climb” is a really cool song and the only way you can get it is off the soundtrack, so that makes it really special.

Question: What do you want your fans to get out of the soundtrack?

When fans listen to the soundtrack I hope they are more inspired by the movie and that they relate to me and to the character a little better.

Question: How does the movie relate to you?

The movie relates to me because my character goes back to Nashville and it’s really nice to go back home. There are songs like “Back to Tennessee ” and “You’ll Always Find your Way Back Home.” They’re all about Nashville and that’s where I’m from and that is my roots. I think Nashville is a lot of the reason why I am who I am.

Hannah Montana The Movie Fun Facts

Extras were hired to play paparazzi during one scene in which Hannah Montana is making a music video in Santa Monica. Meanwhile, off screen real paparazzi were trying to capture the moment.

Star Lucas Till’s four-legged co-star, Seabiscuit, was the horse that played the title character in the 2003 film “Seabiscuit,” a true story about a Depression-era race horse that beat the odds.

Director Peter Chelsom was an actor for 15 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Hannah Montana’s concert, which opens the film, was shot at the Forum in Inglewood , California , the former home of the Los Angeles Lakers and L.A. Kings as well as the location of hundreds of concerts. During the concert, Miley Cyrus performed a couple of her revamped biggest hits for the 1,000 extras on hand.

Filming in Tennessee returned the Cyruses to their own home near Nashville .

The shoe fight sequence between Hannah Montana and Tyra Banks was filmed in two locations. The exterior was filmed on the very posh Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills , while the interior was shot in a department store in Tennessee .

At a fundraiser in the film, Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) gets up on stage and teaches the audience the dance steps to the show-stopping “Hoedown Throwdown,” a hip-hop country fusion number in which the song’s lyrics are the dance instructions. The filmmakers nicknamed the number “Miley’s Macarena.”

Miley/Hannah performs classic crowd favorites such as “Rockstar” and “Best of Both Worlds” in addition to unveiling 10 brand new songs including “The Climb,” “Hoedown Throwdown,” “Let’s Get Crazy,” “Butterfly Fly Away” and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.” Also performing in the film are hit musical acts Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts.

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With album sales exceeding 4 million copies in 2008, 19-year-old TAYLOR SWIFT was the best-selling artist across all genres of music last year. Her sophomore release, “Fearless,” reached double platinum in just four weeks and was the year’s biggest debut for any female artist and the fourth highest debut of 2008 overall. Taylor, who is signed to Big Machine Records, currently holds the Billboard all-genre record for most Top 20 debuts in a calendar year.

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JASON EARLES (Jackson Stewart) portrays the older but not exactly wiser brother of Miley Stewart on the Disney Channel show and in the film. Earles has appeared in numerous television series and films, including the movies “National Treasure,” “American Pie: Band Camp,” “Special Ed,” “Gordon Glass” and “Space Buddies.”

He has also starred in Disney Channel’s original TV movie “Dadnapped” opposite Emily Osment; guest starred on the television series “Aaron Stone,” “Boston Legal,” “The Shield,” “One on One” and “Still Standing”; and was a recurring character on “Phil of the Future.”
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TYRA BANKS first came to the public’s attention as a groundbreaking international supermodel before moving into entertainment. Banks created Bankable Productions in 2003 to handle her burgeoning television development and production activities; and in 2007 founded Bankable Enterprises to anchor her expansion into business ventures outside of filmed entertainment.

Banks became a true pioneer in reality TV as the creator, executive producer and host of the tremendously successful “America’s Next Top Model,” which appears in over 100 countries, with an additional 20 countries adapting their own version. Banks is also the executive producer and host of her own daytime talk show, the Emmy Award®-winning “The Tyra Banks Show.” Banks introduced another hit reality show in January 2009 with “True Beauty,” a primetime series airing on ABC, which she executive produced alongside Ashton Kutcher.

Hannah Montana The Movie shooting in Tennessee, Beverly Hills, Paradise Cove, the Santa Monica

After 10 weeks of shooting in Tennessee, cast and crew moved to Los Angeles in July 2008 to film exterior scenes in Beverly Hills, Paradise Cove, the Santa Monica Pier and the Forum stadium.

Paradise Cove, a private beach at the northern end of Malibu, served as the backdrop for filming a music video and dream sequence within the film. Hanania and costume designer Christopher Lawrence created a playful retro look in the sequences, filling them with colorful vintage swimsuits and surfboards, a classic woodie surf wagon and a chiseled lifeguard surveying the beach party from his lifeguard perch.
In another example of reality blurring fiction in the film, while Los Angeles-based paparazzi clamored at the perimeter to get shots of Miley, dressed as Hannah Montana, a group of extras, pretending to be paparazzi, chased and shot the pop star for the scene.

In Beverly Hills, cast and crew literally stopped traffic when Miley and Vanessa Williams walked down Rodeo Drive to film the exterior location for the film’s shoe-fight sequence with Tyra Banks (the interior of the store, where the fight ensues, was shot previously in a department store in Tennessee). Stopping traffic in Beverly Hills was nothing when compared to the anticipated challenges of filming on the Santa Monica Pier. Filmmakers admit it was the location they were most concerned about in terms of media and crowds. The pier was also challenging because there was a lot to be filmed in a short period of time, including a skateboard stunt sequence with Lilly, a special effects-rigged exploding birthday cake, Miley’s late entrance dressed as Hannah, several live musical numbers and coverage of all the main cast. However, when the days actually arrived, filming went very well and the crowds of fans and onlookers presented no problems.

Production on the film concluded with several days of shooting at the Forum in Inglewood, California, the former home of the Los Angeles Lakers and L.A. Kings as well as the location of hundreds of concerts. There, the movie’s opening concert sequence was filmed with Hannah Montana performing a couple of her revamped biggest hits for the 1,000 extras on hand. It was also the site for Miley and Lilly’s mad dash on a golf cart, with security guard in pursuit, when Hannah Montana is almost late for her own concert.

In conclusion, Millar says: “Fans who see the movie will know that Hannah is growing up, her music is growing up. This is not the same girl who began on the TV show. Like her character, Miley is a girl from a small town who gets to follow her dream and make it happen. In this film, you’ll see how she’s matured and how she’s growing up, much like her fans.”

Hannah Montana The Movie shoots in the Nashville and Los Angeles

The production was divided into shoots in the Nashville and Los Angeles areas. Near Nashville, they created the fictional Crowley Corners, an idyllic small American town. In Los Angeles, they wanted to show off the California dream—the beaches of Malibu and Santa Monica, the glitz of Beverly Hills, a stadium concert at the Forum.

“We wanted to have some beautiful photography in this movie and really let the locations set the action up,” says Chelsom. “In the first act, it rushes, rushes, rushes, there’s no chance to stop and breathe because that’s the nature of Miley’s life as Hannah and Miley Stewart in L.A. It is frenetic, crazy. Then you get to Tennessee and the pulse completely changes, the style of photography changes and you have this expanse. You can see the horizon, the sky and the landscape. It all opens up.”

For the cast members, taking the characters out of the studio and on to location made all the difference in terms of getting into their roles and understanding the story.

“This movie takes ‘Hannah Montana’ to another level, a different scale,” says Jason Earles, who co-stars as Miley’s brother in the film and the TV show. “Obviously us being out in the real world in beautiful locations with thousands of extras is not something that you can accomplish on a sound stage when you’re shooting a sitcom. The film is grand in scope, but it all comes back to this real place: family and friendships and relationships we’ve created and stayed true to.”

Numerous locations in and around Nashville were used in the film, including the Hermitage Hotel, Maury Airport, Franklin High School, Vanderbilt University, Rutledge Falls, Smiley Hollow, Leiper’s Fork and the Belks Department Store in Cool Springs.

One of the main locations, Grandma Ruby’s farm, was on a 200-acre ranch south of Nashville, just a few miles from the Cyrus family farm. When filmmakers first scouted the location that became Ruby’s farm, the main house was empty and in disrepair, needing both construction and decor. Production designer Caroline Hanania transformed the nearly 100-year-old house into a warm, inviting home in the beautiful Tennessee countryside. Margo Martindale, who plays Ruby, said the details inspired and informed her performance.

“When I first saw this house it was empty and Caroline had just put up some vintage wallpaper,” says Martindale. “When I arrive days later to film, stepping into Ruby’s house was like stepping into my grandmother’s house. Beautifully done, every little detail, even the cabinets the camera never sees. There’s a sewing room all set up, a room where I pot plants. All I had to do was walk around this house and I knew everything about my character.”

Cast and crew also shot in the nearby town of Columbia, Tennessee, where the Stewart’s fictional hometown of Crowley Corners was re-created on the city’s historic town square. With Columbia’s courthouse serving as Crowley Corners’ town hall, one of the film’s most elaborate slapstick sequences takes place as Miley dashes between her dinner with the mayor, dressed as Hannah Montana, and a date she has with Lucas, dressed as Miley, in a romantic Italian restaurant down the street.
Columbia’s town square also serves as a backdrop to the sequence where Miley and her grandmother travel to town to sell Ruby’s watermelons, squashes and jams at the farmer’s market. When Miley spots Oswald, the British reporter she last saw in Los Angeles, and realizes he’s followed her to Crowley Corners, she decides to sabotage him. The extensive stunt-and-effects sequence that follows involves some devilish hot sauce, a 3-D architectural model, 700 pounds of cascading walnuts and an Irish jig.

Another key location in Tennessee was Smiley Hollow, a rustic corporate retreat and working farm located north of downtown Nashville. Nestled in the rolling hills of Goodlettsville, Smiley Hollow provided the perfect location to create the film’s exterior concert sequences as well as the supper club musical performances and dance numbers. Production designer Hanania and her crew worked for weeks to transform the retreat’s two key locations for the film. This included the retreat’s wooden meeting hall to serve as the Meadows Hall supper club where Robby Ray, Miley and Taylor Swift perform during an open mic fundraiser to save Crowley Meadows from a developer (Barry Bostwick).

Outside the Meadows Hall location was the tree-lined expanse of fields where Hanania and her team created the Crowley Meadows farm and site of the “Save the Meadows” fundraiser. Her team constructed a barn, waterwheel, concert stage, carnival booths and rides. More than 2,000 extras filled the Smiley Hollow location, where both Hannah Montana and Miley Stewart perform several of the film’s musical numbers, including “Rock Star,” “The Climb” and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.”

The farthest location in Tennessee was Rutledge Falls. After a two-hour drive, cast and crew then hiked to the remote waterfalls where Miley and Travis go for a picnic and swim. “There were a lot of unhappy faces on the crew when they realized how far they had to climb down the rocks with the equipment to get to the bottom where we were filming,” says Chelsom. “But when you look at the scene, I think they’d agree it was so worth it. It’s spectacularly gorgeous.”

In the film, Miley experiences her first serious romance with a former childhood friend, Travis

In the film, Miley experiences her first serious romance with a former childhood friend, Travis (Lucas Till). Insecure and attracted to the blond-haired, blue-eyed cowboy, Miley drops Hannah Montana’s name thinking Travis will be impressed and possibly be more interested in her. After trying to hide her dual personas from Travis, Miley learns that he actually prefers her—not Hannah—and he feels betrayed when he discovers that she’s been fooling him.

Filmmakers say the role of Travis was the hardest one to cast. Once again, they passed on the idea of stunt or star casting in favor of finding the most real actor for the role of a young southern kid on his way to becoming a man.

“We were basically looking for that young Brad Pitt from ‘Thelma & Louise,’ and lo and behold, in from Atlanta, Georgia, on this tape comes Lucas Till. When we brought him in to screen test with Miley, they clicked, and we knew we had our guy,” says Gough.

Till says: “There are a lot of similarities between me and Travis, which really attracted me to this role. Like a lot of southern guys, he’s reserved, and I’m from the South, and I’m a reserved guy. I don’t really like to show my emotions too much, and Travis kind of holds his feelings back. He loves riding horses, and I found out I really love riding horses. So Travis and I, we have a lot in common.”

In creating a romance for Miley/Hannah, the filmmakers wanted to explore the excitement and innocence of a teenage girl’s first serious case of infatuation. “This wasn’t about riding off into the sunset together and everything is happy and done,” says Chelsom. “In this instance, we wanted the two halves of the interest to move in a certain direction and affect each other, particularly Miley. The character of Travis is not just a hunk. It’s about what he represents and how he brings her down to earth.”

For his role as Travis, Till took guitar and piano lessons and began horseback riding a couple of hours a day for a few weeks before shooting began. Till, who had never ridden a horse before beginning rehearsals on the movie, was hooked. “It felt so good and natural, I should have been on a horse my entire life,” Till says. “I fell in love with riding. It’s an awesome, awesome experience to be able to learn that as part of my job.”

His four-legged co-star, Seabiscuit, was the horse that played the title character in the 2003 film “Seabiscuit,” a true story about a Depression-era race horse that beat the odds.

Hannah Montana The Movie - line between fiction and reality

While characters returning home to find themselves again are a staple in classic storytelling, “Hannah Montana The Movie” transcends the line between fiction and reality. In taking Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana back to Crowley Corners, Tennessee, the film transported Miley Cyrus, her father and co-stars back to the Cyruses’ real-life hometown, Nashville, giving the young actress a chance to be home again following her meteoric two-year rise to stardom.

“It’s super important to stay true to yourself and your family and stay in touch with who you are,” says Miley. “When audiences walk away from the movie, I hope they feel like they’ve been to my home. I hope they feel like they understand Nashville because Nashville is my everything. Nashville is who I am.”

With Tennessee being so much a part of the Hannah Montana story—and the Cyrus’ family roots—filming on location there became essential. In fact, Tennessee, like Los Angeles, soon became a character in the film, representing Miley and Hannah’s both real and fictional roots.

For Billy Ray, having the chance to return to Tennessee to shoot the film and be at the family’s farm, where Miley lived until age 13, was truly having the best of both worlds. “In the evenings, after work, she’s out climbing trees, riding horses, she’s that little girl again. She’s Miley,” he says.

Watching and working with his talented daughter is a remarkable experience for Billy Ray. “I’m so proud of her, not only as a daddy in her personal life, but as a musician to see the kinds of songs she writes,” he says. “Then, as an actress to see her evolve from a Lucille Ball-inspired comedienne to a role with some real depth is amazing. I think she brings inspiration to a lot of kids out there to follow your dreams, to pursue what you love and never give up.”

For all the confidence she inspires in others, Miley admits she was nervous about the film role and grateful she’d had the opportunity to develop these characters over time on a series.

“What’s been really cool in making the movie is to already understand the characters because of the television show. I was scared out of my mind for half the movie. Making a film is like learning the ropes all over again,” says Miley. “Director Peter Chelsom would say, ‘OK, I believed that,’ and I thought, ‘What does that mean?’ Soon, I understood. Our television show can be a little more unrealistic because it’s supposed to be crazy and fun, that’s part of a kid sitcom. But a movie is different. Peter was always saying, ‘Make it small, very little, you don’t have to do much at all.’”

Hannah Montana Miley Hannah performs 12 new songs in the film

While “Hannah Montana” has always had music, the film takes the music to another level. As the Stewarts travel from Los Angeles to Tennessee, the audience discovers how deeply the family’s lives are rooted in music.

“Peter Chelsom describes the Stewart family as a bilingual family whose second language is music, and that’s very true in this movie,” says Gough.

Chelsom says the film’s numerous songs are tightly woven into the fabric of the story and the characters, which is why he believes the film will feel like a musical without being one. “We continuously dance very close to the convention of a musical but are more integrated. Songs are going to sit within the film, not apart from the film. At times, you won’t notice the music is happening; it’ll just move the story along.”

An example is the song “The Climb.” After troubles with Lilly, her brother, her father, her grandmother and Travis, Miley begins to realize how much her secret impacts the relationships with the people whom she loves. Confused and contrite, she ends up expressing her emotions by writing a song, “The Climb.”

“The song is her journey, the lessons she’s learned in the movie,” says Gough. “It’s an epic song, written by a Nashville songwriter named Jesse Alexander with her partner, John Mabe. It’s a power ballad that encapsulates Miley’s journey and the message of the film.”

In total, Miley/Hannah performs 12 new songs in the film, including “Let’s Get Crazy,” “Butterfly Fly Away” and “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.”
The innovative mix of music in the film includes pop, rock, country, hip hop and even a familiar Hawaiian-themed melody. “We realized this was an opportunity to move forward with the music, to update it and make it more sophisticated, to move with Miley’s age,” says Chelsom. “I’ve never had a better musical experience on any film.”

Another musical highpoint comes when Billy Ray Cyrus (as Robby Ray Stewart) performs “Back to Tennessee”—the title song of his latest album—at a fundraiser to save Crowley Meadows from developers. Written by Cyrus, Tamara Dunn and Matthew Wilder, it has as its inspiration Billy Ray’s longing to return to his roots and breathe the sweet southern air of his home state.

Hit singer-songwriter Taylor Swift became involved when the filmmakers approached her about using her music in the film. Swift not only said the filmmakers could use her music, but she’d be happy to perform a song in the movie.

“When I got an email from Disney saying they wanted a song that was perfect to fall in love to and sort of a country waltz, I sent them ‘Crazier’ and they loved it,” Swift says.

Swift also co-wrote the film’s closing musical number, “You’ll Always Find Your Way Back Home.”

Another song sure to inspire dancing is the “Hoedown Throwdown,” nicknamed “Miley’s Macarena” by the filmmakers, a hip-hop country fusion number in which Miley Stewart gets up on stage and teaches the dance steps to the audience with the song’s lyrics.

“We called it ‘The Project’ for the longest time,” says Chelsom. “I wanted a song that taught a dance in the lyrics of the song like the ‘Macarena’ or the ‘Funky Chicken.’ I wanted to maximize Miley’s real silliness physically. She’s physically funny and has great abandon, and I wanted to capture all of that.”

Because the dance steps are the song and the song is the dance steps, creating the musical number became an ongoing collaboration among the songwriters, the choreographer (Jamal Sims), Miley and the filmmakers. Chelsom’s determination to combine Miley Stewart’s L.A. hip-hop/pop style with her country roots in a seemingly improvised dance number eventually produced the show-stopping “Hoedown Throwdown.”

Telling a feature-film-length “Hannah Montana” story

In telling a feature-film-length “Hannah Montana” story, the producers wanted to find a director who would knock down the confines of the sitcom walls and bring Miley/Hannah’s world to a big-screen reality. Producers Millar and Gough needed a performance-oriented director with the breadth of experience to take the film’s wide range of music, comedy and drama and craft a simple, genuine story of a teenage girl searching for her true self.

“If you look at Peter Chelsom’s films, all the ingredients for this movie are in those movies—comedy, family, melody and emotion. Peter covers the gamut in his films,” says Gough. “Peter always gets the performance, it always comes first, and we needed a director to take most of these kids through their first film, especially Miley. Peter was an actor for 10 years working with The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal National Theatre and in TV and film, so to have a director who can actually speak to the actors and bring a range of vision and an experienced hand is exactly what we wanted.”

In addition to his strengths as a visualist and performance-oriented director, Chelsom also brought a couple of other highly desirable attributes, including a complete lack of knowledge about the secret pop-star sensation.

“He had never heard of Hannah Montana, which made it even better because we wanted fresh eyes on the material,” says Millar. “We wanted the script to work without knowledge of the show or the characters, and it did. After Peter became involved, of course, he became completely engrossed in watching all the episodes and became a Hannah expert.”

“This film reminded me of the Disney films of the ’60s that felt like real five-course meals the whole family could go and enjoy,” says Chelsom. “Disney let me make the film I wanted. Now a film about Hannah Montana is going to have certain elements—shopping, partying, music—but we really worked hard to incorporate a lot of substance in it, to make it genuinely a family movie with range, with a richness and beauty that reminds people of those classic Disney family films.”

Hannah Montana - great dance numbers, phenomenal music

When the idea for a feature film based on the series was discussed, returning Miley and her father to Tennessee seemed an ideal and natural extension of the characters’ storylines to the big screen.

“We wanted to open it up, get it outside and let it breathe,” says Gough about the “Hannah Montana” story. “As we developed the screenplay, we had a couple of rules up front. One was we were not going to use any of the sets on the television show. And secondly, we wanted it to be filmed in real places, actual locations: Nashville, Malibu, the Santa Monica Pier, Beverly Hills.”

Gough’s producing partner Millar adds: “Our goal as the producers was always to make a movie that would surprise people. I think people have an expectation based on the sitcom of a goofy, very broad comedy. But we wanted this movie to have incredible heart, vistas, landscapes, beautiful photography, great dance numbers, phenomenal music and a big scope. And this movie is all of that.”

Another change from the ensemble sitcom format was the film’s focus on Miley rather than on a group adventure or road movie with her series co-stars. Screenwriter Berendsen says: “One of the things that sets this movie apart from the show is that in a good part of the film Miley is on her own. This is about her character, it’s her adventure. It’s something she and her father have to go through together.”
As the film opens, Miley Stewart’s life is out of balance. Taken under the wing of a gung-ho and glamorous publicist, Vita (Vanessa Williams), Miley’s letting Hannah begin to dominate her life. When she keeps choosing Hannah over her commitments to family members—to say goodbye to Jackson as he leaves for college, to attend Lilly’s long-anticipated sweet-16 party or her grandmother’s birthday celebration—it is clear Miley’s beginning to forget why the Hannah Montana secret was created in the first place.

When Hannah Montana ends up in a paparazzi-captured fight with Tyra Banks over a pair of designer shoes, Miley’s father quietly takes control. Having attempted to reason with her to no avail, Robby Ray tricks Miley into thinking she’s going to New York as Hannah to perform when he’s really taking her from Los Angeles back home to Crowley Corners, Tennessee.

Miley’s double life becomes even more complicated when she returns to Crowley Corners. She discovers that a reporter (Peter Gunn) has somehow managed to track Hannah Montana to her hometown and is asking lots of questions of the locals. She also meets up with an old childhood friend, Travis Brody (Lucas Till), and soon finds herself in her first serious romance. When Miley tries to impress Travis by telling him about her friend Hannah Montana, she suddenly finds her alter ego enlisted in a concert fundraiser to help save her hometown’s pristine Crowley Meadows from developers. Once again, having taken on more than she can handle, Miley has to call on her best friend, Lilly, and ask her for help. When Lilly finally arrives in Crowley Corners pretending to be Hannah Montana, events really spin out of control.

The series “Hannah Montana” has become a pop culture phenomenon

Since its 2006 debut, the series “Hannah Montana” has become a pop culture phenomenon, garnering Emmy® nominations, No. 1 ratings and an ever-expanding, loyal fan base. The idea of a young pop star who wants to live an ordinary life unaffected by her stardom found wide appeal with family audiences and placed the series at the No. 1 spot for series among children 6-14 on U.S. cable television during its first two years on the air.

“With ‘Hannah Montana,’ the character is the concept, so it easily translates to film,” says producer Gough. “It’s basically a superhero movie for girls. She’s a normal high school student by day and pop star by night. So, she’s dealing with identity issues, family issues, relationship issues. Most kids and adolescents who deal with the same issues feel as if they don’t have any power, so the idea of putting on a wig and a costume and being a powerful superhero is teen wish fulfillment.”

The Disney Channel and “Hannah Montana” series creators and executive producers, Michael Poryes and Steve Peterman, structured a strong ensemble cast around the charismatic star and lead character, played by a then-13-year-old unknown named Miley Cyrus, grounding her character in family and friendships while exploring the adventures of her secret double life. This included an easy-going but wise widower father (Billy Ray Cyrus), an older, but not exactly wiser brother, Jackson (Jason Earles), and a trusted and true best friend, Lilly (Emily Osment).

Once Miley and Billy Ray were cast, Poryes and Peterman took the basic premise and tweaked it to fit the realities of the Cyrus father-daughter relationship. So the father and daughter now come from a small town in Tennessee and have recently moved to Los Angeles. The characters are both singer-songwriters, and their homespun conversations are filled with southern sayings and recollections. With their exceptional chemistry, the father-daughter dynamic easily translated into an accessible blend of music and comedy. Miley and Billy Ray and Miley and Robby Ray had become inspiredly intertwined.

“It’s pretty much art imitating life imitating art,” says Billy Ray Cyrus about their onscreen counterparts. “We never planned it, but once it happened, Miley and I worked hard to make it and keep it real.”

Hannah Montana The Movie stars Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles, Mitchel Musso, Moises Arias and Billy Ray Cyrus

Walt Disney Pictures takes the Disney Channel phenom to the big screen in the feature film extravaganza HANNAH MONTANA THE MOVIE. Miley Stewart (Miley Cyrus) struggles to juggle school, friends and her secret pop-star persona; when Hannah Montana’s soaring popularity threatens to take over her life—she just might let it. So her father (Billy Ray Cyrus) takes the teen home to Crowley Corners, Tennessee, for a dose of reality, kicking off an adventure filled with the kind of fun, laughter and romance even Hannah Montana couldn’t imagine.

Filmed entirely on location in and around Nashville, Tennessee, and Los Angeles, California, “Hannah Montana The Movie” stars Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment, Jason Earles, Mitchel Musso, Moises Arias and Billy Ray Cyrus. Also starring are Melora Hardin, Margo Martindale, Barry Bostwick, Peter Gunn, Lucas Till and Vanessa Williams. Guest stars include Tyra Banks, Taylor Swift and country music trio Rascal Flatts.

Walt Disney Pictures presents “Hannah Montana The Movie,” directed by Peter Chelsom (“Serendipity,” “Shall We Dance?”) and written by Dan Berendsen (“Twitches,” “The Initiation of Sarah”) based on characters created by Michael Poryes and Rich Correll & Barry O’Brien. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, whose film screenwriting credits include “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor,” “Spider-Man 2” and “Shanghai Noon,” are producing the film, marking the duo’s first feature under their Walt Disney-based production company, Millar/Gough Ink. The film is executive produced by David Blocker (“Into the Wild,” “Don King: Only in America”) and the team of Michael Poryes and Steve Peterman (“Hannah Montana”).

Director of photography is David Hennings (“Blue Crush”), and the production designer is Caroline Hanania (“Serendipity,” “Shall We Dance?”). The editor is David Moritz (“P.S. I Love You,” “Town & Country”), and the costume designer is Christopher Lawrence (“Cellular,” “The Alibi”). The music is by John Debney (“Meet Dave,” “The Passion of the Christ”), and the choreographer is Jamal Sims (“Hairspray,” “Step Up,” “Step Up 2: The Streets”).

Miley Cyrus’ top-rated Emmy®-nominated television series, “Hannah Montana,” sold-out 70-city concert tour and third consecutive top-selling album (“Breakout”) in less than two years have propelled the young actress-singer-songwriter to international stardom. Following the series’ sensational debut in March 2006 (5.4 million viewed its premiere), Cyrus became an immediate hit with audiences, and her own exploding popularity has mirrored those of her increasingly famous television alter egos, Hannah Montana and Miley Stewart.

“Miley is one of those rare, incredible talents. She can sing, she can dance, she can act—and she’s funny,” says the film’s producer Al Gough. “To be natural on film is the hardest thing in the world, and she does it without any effort, her instincts are so good. To watch her grow as an actor over the course of making this film has been amazing.”

Bringing “Hannah Montana” to the big screen was a natural step in the evolution of Cyrus’ multiple talents and the audience’s rabid desire to know more about their beloved heroines, Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana.

In the movie, Miley sings, dances and performs 13 songs and musical numbers, many as Hannah Montana, some as Miley Stewart. It’s when her Hannah Montana persona begins to take over the responsibilities and commitments of Miley Stewart’s life that her father, Robby Ray, decides to intervene and try to set things right.

“As the film starts in Los Angeles, the pressure is building on Miley with the demands of being Hannah Montana,” says Billy Ray Cyrus, who portrays Miley/Hannah’s father, Robby Ray Stewart, and is Miley’s real-life father. “She’s kind of lost herself, the little girl from Tennessee. Robby Ray decides the best medicine would be to go home. In real life, my dad always says it is important to be aware of your surroundings and where you’re at. Always be looking forward and know where you want to go but, most importantly, never forget where you come from. That’s what this story is about.”

Miley says: “The story shows how you need to be able to take the time to realize who you are and where you’ve come from. I know I have to do that in my life sometimes. It feels great to come home to Nashville and be comfortable with who I am. Where you’re from reflects a lot of who you are and who you’ll become as you get older. Like what happens in the movie, you have to take it back down to the real world.”

When Miley returns home for her Grandma Ruby’s (Margo Martindale) birthday party, she’s not just returning to Tennessee after a long absence, she’s also rediscovering how much her family, friends and home mean to her after her emerging success as a pop star. In “Hannah Montana The Movie” the audience gets to travel back home with Miley Stewart and see where it all began and how she became Hannah Montana.
“On the TV show, you never got to see the origins,” screenwriter Dan Berendsen says. “This movie takes you full circle to how she became Hannah Montana without being a flashback.”

As Miley Stewart finds in the course of the movie, you can go home again.

Tessin canton in Switzerland - influence of Italy

The Tessin is the canton in Switzerland where the influence of Italy is most strongly felt. The climate is warm and sunny. The lakes, surrounded by palms and oleanders, offer endless opportunities for swimming, fishing and sailing. The hardworking peasants live in crude, grey stone huts, hung with festoons of bright yellow corn. The Tessin is the canton where everyone goes to relax. And here is to be found a more Bohemian life than anywhere else in Switzerland.

The canton of Tessin extends from the St. Gotthard Pass to the plain of Lombardy, an area of 1069 square miles. With the exception of three valleys in the Grisons, it is the only place in Switzerland where Italian is spoken. After the dominion of the Romans who counted this district as part of Gallia Cisalpina, the Tessin belonged successively to the Goths, Lombards and Franks. From the begin, ning of the 12th century until 1403, because of its importance as a key to the Alpine passes, it was jealously guarded by the nobles of Como and Milan and finally monopolized by the Visconti. Then the Val Leventina went over to Uri and Obwalden, which led to endless quarrels between the Milanese and the Confederation. In 1798 the Tessin gained complete independence, but only joined the Swiss Confederation permanently in 1803. The population, although predominantly of Italian origin, has been strongly influenced by a steady migration from the cantons of inner Switzerland. This blending of German and Italian stock has produced a race of sturdy mountain people, courageous and independent, typically Tessiner in character, but Swiss in feeling. Although the Alps in the Tessin are greatly inferior in height and importance of their glaciers to those of the rest of Switzerland, this canton is one of the most interesting from the point of view of art. Churches, paintings, frescos, sculptures and buildings of real merit and beauty are to be found in the most out of the way places. Tessiner artists, artisans and architects were active in all parts of Europe at the time of the Renais, sance. Among the most important were Domenico Fontana, who worked on the buildings of the Vatican, Carlo Maderno, who built the façade of St. Peter's, Baldassare Longhena, the architect of the church of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, Domenico Trezzini, one of the principal architects to draw up plans for St. Petersburg and Pietro Solari, who built part of the Kremlin.

With so much native talent, it is not surprising that the Tessin possesses gems of architectural loveliness hidden away in deep valleys. These architectural treasures combined with its incomparable scenery, go far towards making the Tessin one of the most unusual, beautiful and picturesque cantons in Switzerland.

The traveller, upon leaving Goeschenen and the wild gorges of the Reuss river, will be struck at the exit of the Gotthard tunnel by the contrast in climate and landscape between this countryside and that of Central Switzerland. As the train slowly descends southward, the scraggy shrubs and woods in the almost and northern part of the canton give way to the gorgeous and luxuriantly tropical vegetation around the lakes of Lugano and Maggiore.

Berne, the capital of Switzerland

Berne, with its arcades and fountains, is the capital of Switzerland and the seat of the Federal Government. It is situated in the heart of a rich farming district with the magnificent Bernese Alps as a background. The Bernese them. selves are a slow and easy. going people, but supposedly somewhat clumsy, like the bears which have been the symbol of the city since its foundation.

Berne, the capital of Switzerland and seat of the government since 1848, is, of all important Swiss cities, the one which has most successfully preserved its old world charm.

Built on a promontory above the River Aare, it has a magnificent view of the Bernese Alps. And even in modern times nothing mars the architectural unity of the city. The old town is marked off by perfectly clear boundaries -- the river Aare Berne on three sides, the line of the last walls, retained in the name of the Äusseres Bollwerk, on the fourth. Berne can be described in terms of the quaint or picturesque, but only at the cost of a radical misapprehension of her character. The town was not built to be picturesque, but to fulfil a very practical function. And Berne has something far deeper than mere picturesqueness to reveal. What is unique and imposing in this city is the harmony of form and color in which the spirit of a community has incorporated itself in stone. Other towns have beautiful monuments. Berne, as it has been so aptly said, itself is a monument. The single building in Berne is astonishingly unpretentious. There are no overwhelming façades nor single beautiful houses on which endless time, thought and money were lavished. This has always been so, and travellers tales tell us how the character of Berne has withstood all the changes of time, taste and traffic.

Practically the whole town was rebuilt in the early decades of the eighteenth century, but the arcades were rebuilt with it. No façade projected to break the even flight on either side of the streets, and only details -- the composition of the house front with its central accent, the ornamental sculptures and iron work -- show that Berne is a town of the eighteenth century.

That is what is great in Berne. It is not only that the Bernese on principle dislike useless trimmings. It would have been possible for them to have created a completely new town for they had the money -- and piety towards things of the past is only a modern feeling. Moreover, as the view from the Kirchenfeld Bridge shows, they could create eighteenth century façades as well as anyone else, and the public buildings of the epoch are fully expressed in its terms. But along the streets of the old town, the expression of the individual was quite naturally absorbed in the expression of the community.

Along the main street, which is called successively Spitalgasse, Marktgasse, Kramgasse and Gerechtigkeitsgasse, are a series of handsome fountains dating mostly from the 16th century. The most famous one, the Kindlifresser, shows a ferocious ogre devouring a child while several other infants are held in readiness in his pockets. Owing to the fact that the ogre wears a Jew's cap, it has been said that this fountain is a public reminder of the awful practices attributed to the Jews in olden days. Another story has it that so many children had fallen into the town moat that this figure was set up to frighten them away. Other famous fountains are the Zähringerbrunnen showing a bear fully armed with a little bear at his feet calmly eating grapes; the Samsonbrunnen, the fountain of the guild of butchers, with whom Samson was always a favorite figure; and the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, the fountain of Justice, showing Justice with an upright sword moving between Emperor, Sultan, Pope and Magistrate.

Olympos and the Fires of Chimaera

The ancient site of Olympos dates back to Hellenistic times when it was an important Lycian city and became famous as a place of worship honouring Hephaestos or Vulcan, the God of Fire. Located on a beautiful sandy bay, the ruins are spread out on either side of the Ulupinar River and include a Byzantine bathhouse with mosaic floors, a marble temple entrance, a theatre, and some excavated tombs. The shoreline is also a major protected nesting site for sea turtles.

On the rocky slopes above the ancient city are a series of eternal flames issuing from cracks in the rock, caused by the combustion of natural gas seeping out of the mountain. It is possible to extinguish them briefly, but they will always re-ignite and are most impressive in the dark when at their most visible. The fire that comes out of the ground is said to be coming from the mouth of Chimaera, a mythical fire-breathing monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and a snake’s tail, who was slain by the Lydian hero, Bellerophon on his winged horse, Pegasus.
The Gods of Olympos Divert Themselves with Wine Women and Song Pretty Much Like Us Mortals


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Quebec Precipitation, Winds and Weather

Precipitation

The distribution of rainfall, so important for vegetation and animal life, is fairly uniform in Southern Quebec where the mean annual precipitation ranges between 35 and 40 inches. It decreases to 30 inches westward and to 20 and even 15 inches in Northern Quebec. In the Laurentide Park, the summits receive as much as 55 inches, but are closely surrounded by isohyets of 50 and 45 inches; the latter one expands far south of the massif, and joins the Appalachian heights in the Eastern Townships. Away from this centre precipitation decreases in two opposite directions: eastward the shores of the Estuary and the Gulf are below 35 inches from Rivière du Loup and Tadoussac to Gaspé; westward, the upper Ottawa Valley is even below 30 inches. On one hand cold waters seldom produce rain while on the other the decrease towards the interior is to be explained by the more continental type of weather. The heavier precipitation between is produced not only by higher altitudes north of Quebec City, but by the fact that in summer the warm air masses from the south collide here with the colder masses of the north.

Quebec has the heaviest snowfall in Eastern Canada. At 19 stations out of 49 where the snowfall is recorded and published, 1 the depth of the snow is over 100 inches. Montreal and Quebec have 112 and 123 respectively. Few stations have less than 80 inches. The many ways in which the snow cover is beneficial to the land are well-known. Snow is not only welcomed by sportsmen but by foresters and farmers. It protects the roots of the plants and affords easier ways of transport even for truck driving in the bush. Water from the melting snow also adds moisture to the soil in springtime.

A further idea of climatic conditions is obtained when we consider the number of precipitation days and the hours of sunshine. Montreal and Quebec are only 160 miles apart and they both have about 40 inches of precipitation. But, for a period of ten years, Montreal averaged 164 days per year with measurable precipitation while Quebec had 174 days. Montreal had 1803 hours of sunshine while Quebec had 1745 hours per year. Continental climates are characterized by short periods of precipitation, even though it may be relatively abundant. On the other hand, Maritime climates have fine persistent rain even though the total amount is less. In this respect then, Montreal has a more continental climate than Quebec.

Winds and Weather

In the St. Lawrence Valley prevailing winds are from the northwest in Winter and from the southwest in Summer. They are usually accompanied by fine weather. In the Gulf and the Estuary northeast winds bring bad weather in Summer. Winter winds from the south and southeast are likely to raise the temperature, but they often bring snow storms followed by thawing. In any case, Southern Quebec enjoys the kind of weather to which it is entitled by latitude.

Climatic Subdivisions

Based upon consistent differences in the average climatic statistics, nine climatic subdivisions may be recognized in Southern Quebec. They are: the Appalachians, the Gaspé Uplands, the St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Estuary of the St. Lawrence, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Laurentians, the Lake St. John Area, Western Quebec and Eastern Quebec. The large cold area of Northern Quebec may be regarded as a tenth climatic subdivision.

Particularly noticeable is the variation in precipitation regimes. Precipitation is adequately distributed over the year at all southern stations but in the north there is a tendency for the early spring to have less and the late summer months to have more moisture than the average.

Historic Indians, the Illinois Confederacy was first in importance

Of the historic Indians, the Illinois Confederacy was first in importance and one of the oldest. It was of Algonquian linguistic stock, and consisted of six tribes--the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Moingwena, Peoria, and Tamoroa. Once the Illinois Confederacy occupied most of the Illinois country, but the early Jesuits found that there had been vast movements of all the tribes of the region due to wars with the Iroquois. Closely related to them, if not at one time actually apart of the Confederacy, were the Miami, who dwelt for a time in the region south of Chicago.

The Indians in the Confederacy called themselves Iliniwek (superior men), and indeed were physically well-built, especially the men. They were friendly and talkative, but most of the early explorers reported them rather shiftless and treacherous. In war they were excellent archers; they also used a war club and a kind of lance with dexterity; but their proud title of "superior men" was not earned in war, for they were often defeated by the Iroquois and the northern lake tribes, sometimes by smaller numbers than their own.

Father Allouez first met a party of Illinois at La Pointe, Wisconsin, in 1667, when they came to trade at that post. Three years later he found a number of them at the Mascouten village on the upper Fox River, from which point they were setting out to join their tribes then living on the west side of the Mississippi. It was also on the Iowa side of the river that Father Marquette first encountered the Kaskaskia tribe which proved so friendly; on his return he met the same band at its ancestral village of seventy-four cabins on the Illinois River near Peoria. The estimates of the number of the Illinois vary. Father Hennepin estimated that they numbered 6,500 in 1680; Father Sebastian Rasles gave an estimate of 9,000 in 1692. The Kaskaskia village on the Illinois near Lake Peoria was an important gathering place for all the tribes. When La Salle visited the town in 1680, it had 460 lodges, each housing several families. He reported that the annual assemblies of the tribes were attended by 6,000 to 8,000.

The lodges of this town topped the banks of the Illinois for more than a mile. Corn, beans, and pumpkins matted the adjacent meadows, and maize, planted in the spring, was given special attention by the squaws. When the maize crop was gathered, it was usually stored in pits, often under the houses. Pumpkins were sliced into discs and dried. When the work of harvesting was over, the tribes began to file westward for the serious task of obtaining enough meat to last through the winter and early spring. The men stalked and killed the game; the women dried the meat and carried it back to the village. The Indians' diet was further supplemented by wild fowl, nuts, roots, berries, and fish, which they speared in the lakes and streams.

The usual totems of the Illinois tribes were the crane, beaver, white hind, and tortoise, although the Kaskaskia sometimes used the feather of an arrow, or two arrows fitted like a St. Andrew's cross. Each village had several leaders, each of whom controlled from thirty to fifty young men. A reed mat with the feathers of various birds wrapped in it was carried on the warpath by the leader. The De Gannes Memoir, the most accurate description of the Illinois, probably written by the Sieur Deliette, nephew of Tonti, notes that though women and children captives were spared as slaves, the male captives were tortured by fire, their bodies cut open, and their hearts eaten raw. Mothers then hastened to dip the feet of their male children in the blood of the thoracic cavity.

The Illinois, according to one account, did not immediately bury their dead; bodies were wrapped in skins, and attached by the foot and head to a tree. After the flesh had rotted away, the bones were gathered up and buried in rude sepulchres. The De Gannes Memoir, however, declares that the Illinois buried their dead in shallow trenches lined with planks. Both kinds of graves have been found in Illinois. Grave gifts for the deceased, to accompany him on his journey to the "land beyond the milky way," consisted of an earthen pot, his bow and arrows, a handful of corn and tobacco, and often a calumet pipe.

The De Gannes Memoir further states that men frequently had several wives. As all persons in the village addressed one another in terms of kinship, the sisters, aunts, and nieces of a man's wife were nirimoua, and they in turn called him by the same name; if a brave were a successful hunter, he could marry all the women thus related to him. When a man died, his wife was prohibited from marrying for a year; the penalty for breaking this tribal law was death, after which the offender's scalp was raised over the lodge of her husband's family. Many shamans, or medicine men, lived among the tribes, and attempted to cure illnesses by chants and ceremonies which they professed to have learned through visions; once a year they held a colorful dance at which they gave a preview of their nostrums and powers. In their leisure time, the warriors played a brutal form of lacrosse, or gambled at a game of matching odd and even with sticks. So earnestly did the players engage in the latter that they often gambled away their female relatives.

According to the De Gannes Memoir and the reports of Father Hennepin, the Illinois built their cabins like long arbors, and covered them with a double mat of reeds, which the women gathered from the rivers and wove into rectangles sometimes 60 feet long. Each house had four or five fires and accommodated eight to ten families. Some of the villages were enclosed within palisades; others were set in the open with a good view of the surrounding country.

About 1680 the Iroquois descended upon the Illinois tribes, wiped out the principal villages, and pursued some of the conquered bands down the Illinois River to the Mississippi. There they attacked the Tamoroa, and took 700 of their women and children prisoners. In 1682 La Salle built Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock and gathered about it 3,000 warriors of the various Algonquian tribes in a confederation against the Iroquois; 1,200 Of these were Illinois. Twenty years later, we find the Illinois dispersed again; Peoria, Cahokia, and Kaskaskia were centers for the tribes of those names; the Tamoroa were associated now with the Kaskaskia, and the Michigamea lived near Fort de Chartres on the Mississippi. In 1729 Illinois warriors helped the French subdue the Natchez, and later fought in the Chickasaw War. Though they became involved in the Conspiracy of Pontiac at the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763, they had by then taken over many vices of the white man and had lost much of their vigor. When Pontiac was killed by a Peoria Indian near Cahokia in 1769, his tribes--the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi--descended from the north and east upon the Illinois and almost annihilated them. A widespread but unauthenticated legend relates that a band of fugitives took refuge on Starved Rock, where they were besieged by the Potawatomi. Their provisions failed; the cords of buckets they dropped to the river for water were cut by the enemy; finally, decimated by thirst and hunger, they were attacked and killed.

In 1778 the Kaskaskia numbered 310 and lived in a small village three miles north of Kaskaskia. The Peoria and Michigamea lived a few miles farther up the river and together numbered 170. By this time all had become worthless and demoralized through the use of liquor. In 1800 there were only 150 Illinois surviving. In 1833 they sold their holdings in Illinois and moved west of the Mississippi; by 1855 the consolidated Peoria, Kaskaskia, Wea, and Piankashaw, living on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma, numbered 149, with much admixture of white blood.

In the seventeenth century, enemies other than the Iroquois came to make war on the Illinois and settle on their land. The Sauk and Fox moved down from Wisconsin to the northwestern part of the State and claimed all the territory between the Mississippi and the Rock Rivers. Originally they had lived along the St. Lawrence; subsequently, harassed by the Iroquois, they moved to Wisconsin. Father Allouez set up a mission among them at Green Bay in 1669. After defeating the Mascoutens near the mouth of the Iowa River, they formed an alliance with the Potawatomi and forced the Illinois to move southward. Their defeat during the Black Hawk War in 1832, when they resisted the encroachments of the white men, caused their ultimate removal from the State.

By the time the French explorers came, the Winnebago sometimes drifted down from Wisconsin into northern Illinois, the Kickapoo had moved into the area at the foot of Lake Michigan, and the Mascouten, friendly to the Illinois, lived in the great grassy plains east of the Mississippi. Along the Wabash dwelt the Piankashaw, and around the southern and western shores of Lake Michigan stretched the hunting grounds of the Potawatomi, a particularly warlike tribe, who, in the Conspiracy of Pontiac, annihilated the garrison at St. Joseph, and in 1812 committed the Fort Dearborn massacre. Associated with the Potawatomi were the Chippewa and Ottawa, among the most energetic and powerful tribes of the Northwest; they lived on both sides of the Wabash. At one time the Shawnee dwelt in the southeastern part of the State.

The Discovery of Tahiti

An English naval captain happened on the island, and thought himself the first
white man there, though the Spanish claim its discovery. The Englishman called it King George Island, after the noted Tory monarch of his day; but a Frenchman, a captain and poet, the very next spring named it the New Cytherea, esteeming its fascinations like the fabled island of ancient Greek lore. It remained for Captain James Cook, who, before steam had killed the wonder of distance and the telegraph made daily bread of adventure and discovery, was the hero of many a fireside
tale, to bring Tahiti vividly before the mind of the English world. That hardy mariner's entrancing diary fixed Tahiti firmly in the thoughts of the British and
Americans. Bougainville painted such an ecstatic picture that all France would emigrate. Cook set down that Otaheite was the most beautiful of all spots on the
surface of the globe. He praised the people as the handsomest and most lovable of humans, and said they wept when he sailed. That was to him of inestimable
value in appraising them.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century the first English missionaries in the South Seas thanked God for a safe passage from their homes to Tahiti, and for a virgin soil and an affrightingly wicked people to labor with. The English, however, did not seize the island, but left it for the French to do that, who first declared it a protectorate, and made it a colony of
France, in the unjust way of the mighty, before the
last king died. They had come ten thousand miles to
do a wretched act that never profited them, but had
killed a people.

In
the eighteenth century, for decades the return to nature had been the rallying cry of those who attacked the artificial and degraded state of society. The published and oral statements of the adventurers in Tahiti, their descriptions of the unrivaled beauty of the verdure, of reefs and palm, of the majestic stature of the men and the passionate charm of the women, the boundless health and simple happiness in which they dwelt, the climate, the limpid streams, the diving, swimming, games, and rarest food--all these had stirred the depressed Europe of the last days of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth centuries beyond the understanding by us cynical and more material people. The world still had its vision of perfection.

Tahiti was the living Utopia of More, the belle île of Rousseau, the Eden with no serpent or hurtful apple, the garden of the Hesperides, in harmony with nature, in freedom from the galling bonds of government and church, of convention and clothing. The reports of the English missionaries of the nakedness and ungodliness of the Tahitians created intense interest and swelled the chorus of applause for their utter difference from the weary Europeans. Had there been ships to take them, thousands would have fled to Tahiti to be relieved of the chains and tedium of their existence, though they could not know that Victorianism and machines were to fetter and vulgarize them even more.

Afterward, when sailors mutinied and abandoned their ships or killed their officers to be able to remain in Tahiti and its sister islands, there grew up in England a literature of wanderers, runagates, and beach-combers, of darkish women who knew no reserve or modesty, of treasure-trove, of wrecks and desperate deeds, piracy and blackbirding, which made flame the imagination of the youth of seventy years ago. Tahiti had ever been pictured as a refuge from a world of suffering, from cold, hunger, and the necessity of labor, and most of all from the morals of pseudo-Christianity, and the hypocrisies and buffets attending their constant secret infringement.

Christian architecture in Rome

Christian architecture in Rome not being called upon to attempt any such heavy constructions as were required by the use of vaulting on a large scale, and not needing heavy walls for its wooden-roofed churches, did not patronize concrete construction. Stone was used but seldom, in the regular courses of the opus quadratum, in such works of engineering as the bridges of Gratian and Valentinian and in the restoration of such monuments as the Coliseum and the theatres. But
even this was abandoned after the Gothic wars: its latest use being possibly in the bridge by Narses over the Anio.

In religious architecture brickwork was the rule in the body of the structure, for the walls were not heavy enough to allow of a brick facing and a concrete core. The quality of the brickwork varied at different periods. As long as the government factories continued the manufacture of bricks, up to the time of the Gothic wars, they were of excellent quality, the main change between the brick of the Antonines (second century) and those of the fifth century being a diminution in size, a change which is found early in the fourth century, though there were also variations in color and texture.

Mediaeval brickwork was less perfect during the middle period. Heavy beds of mortar and careless laying, which we find as early as the fifth century, with an interlude of excellent work under Theodoric, became the rule between the seventh and eleventh centuries. But in the course of the twelfth century there was a return to better brick-making, more careful laying and thinner bedding, which helped to give
a similar effect to that of the age of Constantine.

In classic architecture it had not usually been permissible to let the brickwork be seen except in works of pure utility; with Christian architecture the treatment was different. The exteriors were carelessly treated, for they were spiritually of no interest; and their brickwork was covered only sporadically, as by a mosaic on the facade. The trimmings of doorways and porches were also of stonework. It was only in the interiors that the brickwork was as absolutely concealed as in classic buildings either by facings of thin marble veneering slabs or by mosaic work.

Two other methods were occasionally used: the opus mixtum and the opus saracinescum or a tufelli. The former consisted of alternate layers of small stone blocks, usually tufa, and brickwork, there being at times two rows of the bricks to one course of stone. This method became popular in the time of Constantine and during the rest of the period before the Gothic war, and again came into vogue during the tenth century. The opus saracinescum was a "petit appareil" of small tufa blocks which is found as early as the seventh and remained popular until the eleventh century.

It was only outside of the city that local stone was substituted for brick, and here the stone was often used in so plain a fashion as to lose its natural advantages over brick, as in the basilica of S. Eli at Nepi, or the tower of S. Scholastica at Subiaco.